The man singing the haiku has a voice that is not very outstanding, but the calmness in his tone greatly enhances the charm of the singer. In addition to the singing man, there were also a man and two women in the room, the young man hiding his hands in his arms, his eyes fixed on the intruder, but the uncontrollable trembling of his whole body revealed the great fear he had hidden.

As for the two women, one was a beautiful girl dressed in gorgeous satin, about 17 or 8 years old, and she sat on the brocade cushion opposite the singing man, although it seemed quiet, Yoshikawa Kosuke could still see the stiffness of the girl's body.

As for the younger girl who was shivering behind her, dressed in the clothes of a lower lady more common in a brothel, she should have been the maid beside the girl. Without waiting for Kanichi Numata beside Kosuke Yoshikawa to speak, the singing man seemed to finally notice that an uninvited guest had entered the room, so he stopped singing, put down the shamisen in his hand and turned his head to look.

Kosuke Yoshikawa greeted a few people nonchalantly: "It turned out that the official master came here, I thought that who didn't know the etiquette so much, and rushed into Miss Xinrong's room without even saying hello, aren't you really afraid of abrupt beauty." ”

For such a bold traitor, Numata Kanichi felt his anger rush to his head, he pulled down his face and said to his subordinates behind him, "What are you waiting for, don't you take these two fish that slipped through the net for me." Then he said viciously to the man who had stopped singing: "After I bring you back to the yamen, I want to see if you still have this leisure and elegance to consider, what is a sudden beauty..."

"Slow." Before Numata Kanichi finished speaking, he was suddenly interrupted by Kosuke Yoshikawa, the senior shogunate of the Osaka shogunate, and said with a strange face: "Presumably this is Mei Taro?" Can you talk a little bit? ”

Numata Kanichi interjected in surprise: "My lord, take him back, you can interrogate him as much as you want, why waste time here?" After a while, there will be more people coming to play in this flower street, and I am afraid that there will be some variables. ”

Yoshikawa Kosuke replied undoubtedly at this time: "Then you can escort the others back first and leave a few people for me." ”

Seeing that Yoshikawa Kosuke was serious, Numata Kanichi finally didn't dare to question it anymore. At this time, the man finally spoke up: "It is also an honor to be able to chat with the master of the shogun. Eleven Lang, you go down with the official army master first. ”

As the man spoke, he stretched out his hand to the young man beside him, and the young Eleven hesitated before finally handing the short blade hidden in his arms to the man's hand. Seeing this move of the two men, Numata Kenichi and the samurai behind him immediately pulled out part of the blade from the scabbard and leaned forward to look at the man, for fear that he would burst out.

However, the other party did not hesitate to slide the short knife off the tatami mat, and spread out his hands to shake the kimono on his body, indicating that he did not hide any weapons. When Numata Kanichi watched his subordinates take Eleven out of the room, he couldn't help but say to Yoshikawa Kosuke with some worry: "My lord, why don't you let me accompany you here." ”

Yoshikawa Kosuke untied the sword at his waist and handed it to the samurai behind him, and said to Numata Kanichi: "Captain don't worry, you just bring people back, divide them into custody, and no one will be allowed to interrogate them until I go back." Alright, you two should go and wait outside the door. ”

For Yoshikawa Kosuke's stubbornness, Numata Kanichi was also speechless, and could only tell the samurai who stayed behind to defend Yoshikawa to be vigilant, and if anything was wrong, rush into the room immediately, and never let the adults be harmed.

For the movement behind him, Yoshikawa Kosuke did not interfere, he walked past Umetaro without any scruples, while ordering Xinrong to change his clothes, and on the other hand, he instructed the subordinate who was a little overwhelmed: "Go and talk to the boss, let him prepare a table of wine and food, and be sure to serve Mingguo's good wine, otherwise I won't be able to spare him..."

Ume Taro quietly watched as Yoshikawa Kosuke changed into comfortable civilian clothes, and then sat down in front of him, and by the way, even Shinei was sent out. When there were only two people left in the room, Kosuke Yoshikawa said out loud: "You don't want to serve Taiko and His Royal Highness the Prince in Beijing, what are you doing when you run back to Osaka?" ”

Gamo Naorou shrugged his shoulders and replied with a helpless expression: "I didn't expect that the ambitions of Lord Satsuma and Lord Choshu had reached such a point that they actually wanted to attack you directly. I was afraid that if I refused this mission and asked them to send a few reckless people over, it would really hurt the adults, and our cause would suffer a major setback, so I had to run back and assassinate the adults myself. ”

After Kosuke Yoshikawa picked up the teapot kept warm on the stove and made himself a cup of tea, Fang frowned and said, "Tell me, what's going on?" What are the Satsuma and Choshu domains planning again? ”

Gamo Naorou didn't sell it either, so he told Yoshikawa Kosuke about the incident, during which Xinrong took his daughter to set up a table for the two, but was soon kicked out again. By the time Gamo finished the whole thing, the room was already lit with kerosene lamps.

Under the light of the orange lights, Yoshikawa Kosuke thought for a while, but suddenly asked Gamo Naoyu, "Taiko-sama thinks so about this matter?" ”

Gamo straightened his eyes before replying: "What Taiko-sama means is that Japan's affairs will be solved by Japan, and she will not interfere." However, she also warned us not to drag the two highnesses Yuya and Yumatsu into this troubled water, otherwise she would definitely not sit idly by. ”

Kosuke Yoshikawa didn't seem to take this warning to heart about Naoyu, and he then asked, "Is the relationship between Lord Taiko and His Highness Tomoya still the same as before?" ”

Gamo Naoyuki replied without hesitation this time, "Just like before, Lord Taiko has no other ideas, and the relationship between the two highnesses is extremely close. But..."

"But what?" Kosuke Yoshikawa looked up at the other party's eyes sharply and asked subconsciously. Gamo Naorou hesitated, but still replied honestly: "But in my opinion, His Royal Highness Tomoya seems to have stayed in the Ming Kingdom for too long, and there are more like a Ming than a Japanese. Moreover, he admired His Majesty the Emperor too much, and I was worried that he would be able to get used to life in Japan when he returned to Japan. ”

Yoshikawa Yusuke let out a long breath and said disapprehantly, "This is not a bad thing, only His Highness Taiko can support us in carrying out a thorough reform of Japan." Since the Ming Dynasty is the strongest in our field of vision, then we should let Japan become the second Ming Dynasty, otherwise we should let Japan continue to be wantonly slaughtered by those Southern Barbarians? ”

Kamo Naoyu, who was personally selected and cultivated by Yoshikawa Kosuke, although he didn't agree with the other party's proposition so completely, he didn't say anything against it in front of Yoshikawa Kosuke.

Both of them were silent for a moment, and then Yoshikawa Kosuke broke the silence and said, "What do you think of the Satsuma Domain and the Choshu Domain's operation to revere the king this time? ”

Gamo Naorou had been thinking about this question since he was in Beijing, so he replied without any embarrassment: "I thought that this time the king's rebellion was ostensibly because the feudal clans wanted to take advantage of the dissatisfaction of the people at the bottom for the past two years to point the finger at the shogunate and the foreign people. However, the fundamental reason is that the feudal lords and samurai were dissatisfied with the reform policies promoted by the Osaka shogunate in recent years.

Unlike the Tenryo, which was under the direct jurisdiction of the Osaka shogunate, the samurai in the Toyotomi domain were expelled from their lands after the Tokugawa clan destroyed the Toyotomi clan. And after the Toyotomi clan was restored with the support of the Ming Kingdom, the Tokugawa samurai in the old domain were driven away again. Therefore, when Governor Ye began to implement land reform in the territory of Toyotomi and abolish the old system of samurai fiefdoms, there was basically no opposition.

However, when these reform policies were extended to the feudal domains of western Japan, the lords and samurai of the feudal domains were greatly dissatisfied. It's just that Lord Li was sitting in Osaka that day, and the feudal clans didn't dare to take action, so they could only use some secret means to do something that was contrary to the yang and the yin. However, with the transfer of Lee-sama from Japan, and the shogunate began to implement the conscription system and the standing army system, these lords and samurai could no longer tolerate it.

If the shogunate's reforms continued, the boundaries between the samurai and the commoners would be broken, and wars would no longer be in the hands of the samurai, and Japan would likely become a civilian-dominated society. No matter how powerful Japan is, it will probably be meaningless to the lords and samurai of the feudal domains.

The samurai in the Satsuma domain made up 40-50% of the population, so the Satsuma domain was the easiest to break the boundaries between samurai and commoners, and they had the highest sense of crisis. The Choshu Domain, on the other hand, feared that the shogunate's influence would continue to penetrate into the Chugoku region, eventually making them the first victims of the shogunate's reform of the local feudal towns.

Therefore, the two feudal domains colluded to try to overthrow the shogunate's reform policy by taking advantage of the dissatisfaction of the Japanese people. ”

Yoshikawa Kosuke sighed and said, "So, this time the shogunate has to break with the Satsuma and Choshu feuds?" These daimyo and samurai never thought about their own wealth and family names, but they never thought about the future of Japan.

The reform policies that the shogunate is now promoting are like snails crawling compared to the speed of social change in the Ming Dynasty. Isn't it because Japan is too weak that these daimyo and samurai are still stubbornly clinging to the old traditions?

In times like these, Japan that refuses to be civilized is a dead end. ”